Rusty hadn't planned on finding the box. Of course, this kind of discovery always happened by chance and never on purpose. It was in the back of his closet, tucked into the corner. He wondered how it was even possible he never noticed it before. He looked at it and could feel the curiosity rising inside him. It was made of wood and the lid was kept down with a string and a button. He's never seen a box like this before. It seemed old, even though it smelled okay. He knew that it could have personal things and that he shouldn't open it, but it was in his closet and his curiosity got the better of him. He slid the button out of the string and opened it.
Shoes. He should have guessed. But he's never seen shoes like this before. They were ballet shoes made of pink satin. He took one shoe out and inspected it. He could tell that they were worn before. The soles were marked with Xs and he could see that the white ribbons had been sewn in and did not come with the shoe.
Someone in Sharon's family had been a ballet dancer. That much was obvious. He knew she had a son. She mentioned it once or twice, but he couldn't imagine any guy wearing those shoes. He didn't know if Sharon's other kid was a boy or a girl.
He heard a light knock on the door and threw a quick glance at the shoes before granting Sharon permission to come into his room. She opened the door and went in, not noticing at first that he was holding ballet shoes in his hand.
"Why are you sitting on the floor?" she asked. Rusty handed her one of the shoes and gave her a questioning look.
"I found it in the closet" he said, "It seems pretty old."
"You can say that" Sharon sighed deeply. "Those shoes are nearly forty years old." He could see that her hands were shaking. "I didn't even know I still had them."
"You used to be a ballet dancer?" Rusty arched his eyebrows in surprise. It never occurred to him that Sharon could be a ballerina. How the hell did she become a tough cop?
"Yes, I went to Julliard Dance School" Sharon replied. He could see that she was overwhelmed by his discovery.
"Tell me?" he asked. He didn't know much about her. She very rarely spoke about herself, her life or her feelings. It was just a lucky chance to get to know her better.
"There's nothing much to tell. I was a dancer ever since I could remember. I skipped a grade, so I got to graduate high school when I was 16 and I went straight to Julliard" she shrugged.
"But you're not a dancer anymore, are you?"
"No. I haven't danced in years" she replied, her fingers unconsciously caressing the shoe.
"Why did you stop?" She looked at him, her eyes green and wide.
"In my final year, I got the part of Juliet in 'Romeo and Juliet'. Three days before opening night, I was going out of a rehearsal and…" she sighed.
"And what?" Rusty asked. He wasn't sure if the look in her eyes was nostalgic or painful.
"I was crossing the street, chatting with the lead dancer who was also my boyfriend at the time. A bus came from practically nowhere and hit both of us. He was killed on impact and I barely made it out alive. I don't remember much, because I suffered a head injury and was hanging between life and death for a few weeks, slipped into a coma. I had to go through a long rehab and when I was finally healthy enough to go back to dancing I found out that I can't dance as well as I used to and that's also when I was told that my boyfriend had died. It made me give up." Rusty didn't expect for such a story. He tried to imagine what it would be like if he was forced to give up chess.
"I'm sorry" was all he could say.
"It's been forty years, Rusty. There's no use in crying about it now" Sharon shrugged.
"So how did you become a cop?" Rusty asked. He knew very little about ballet, but he assumed that a ballerina had to be a gentle, graceful, even fragile creature and Sharon was not that. She did have some grace and gentleness, but definitely not enough for a ballerina. As far as he could see, she was tough and ruled her office with an iron fist.
"When I found out about Robert's death – that was my boyfriend – I was depressed for a long time, barely ate or left my bed. I was almost 20 years old and lost the only things I cared about. But at a certain stage, my bills piled up and I was kicked out of my apartment. I decided to leave the east coast and came to LA. My parents thought it was good for me to start my life over and they told me that I should go to school, but all I could think about was ballet. This is the only thing I wanted to do, so when I got the list of possible degrees I could obtain at USC, I closed my eyes and randomly pointed my finger down. When I opened my eyes, I discovered that my finger landed on 'Criminal Justice' and that degree later on led me to the police academy and to Internal Affairs."
"It's hard to think of you as random" Rusty grinned.
"When you're directionless, you tend to be random" she replied.
"And you never thought of dancing again?"
"I did. I still do sometimes, but I can't do it anymore and I love my job. I think maybe that was God's way of showing me what I was supposed to do with my life. I believe that if I was supposed to be a ballerina, I would have become one eventually, but God must have had a different plan for me." Her voice was emotional.
"A God that takes away your dream is cruel" Rusty said. Sharon smiled.
"I don't see it this way. I believe that sometimes we are on the wrong direction and we just don't know it. We think we see the entire picture, but we don't" Sharon explained. "Maybe I could be a good person if I became a prima ballerina, but as a cop, I can be better and try to make the world better. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"
"I think so. You mean that now that you fight crime and put murderers away, you can make the world a better place." Sharon nodded slowly. "And you took me in, even when you didn't have to, so you made my life better as well."
"That is a very sweet thing to say, Rusty. Thank you."
"It's true. If you became a ballerina, we would have never met. I would probably still be in the streets, maybe even dead. So I'm glad you're a cop and if you like being one, then I'm happy too." Rusty didn't expect what happened next. Sharon took a seat on the floor next to him and wrapped her arms around him.
"You made my life better as well, Rusty; you did. And I'm glad that you are here" she said when they pulled apart. She took the ballet shoes and knotted the ribbons together. "I will hang it in my room and when I have a bad day, I'll look at it and be reminded that everything happens for a reason." Rusty thought of his mother and how she left him. It was a shitty situation, but now he had Sharon and that was a good thing, probably even better than his mother.
"And that sometimes bad things have a good outcome" he added and Sharon nodded slowly.
An unexpected discovery that used to cause her so much pain has now turned into a positive thing. God certainly worked in mysterious ways.